The student visa application process for France can be quite challenging for students and study abroad staff. If you work with students studying in France, this Collegial Conversation will offer some helpful information on the application process for a French student visa.

Synthesizing the work of Patti Clayton and Jenny Moon in critical reasoning and reflective writing, this workshop offers practical help in conceiving, designing and using assessment rubrics for grading students in their experiential learning activities. Based in reflection theory but directed to practice, the workshop provides both useful examples of rubric design and the underlying principles and processes needed for creating one’s own assessment rubric templates. Designed for instructors teaching at any level, this workshop both describes good practice in experiential learning assessment and asks participants to share examples of their own successful work. Attendees will leave the workshop with an armful of assessment rubrics as well as tools, guidelines and templates for making more.

University Programs submitted a poster presentation for consideration at the 2012 NAFSA entitled, Creating Meaningful Online Communities for Study Abroad Students, which identifies strong opportunities to use Facebook to create online communities for study abroad students from pre-departure to re-entry, as well as highlights successful examples of these communities.

New professionals gain a broad overview of the program models and student development; advising, promotion, and recruitment; orientation and reentry; and institutional and student circumstances.

Today's learners must understand critical global competencies and desired skills employers are seeking in order to succeed in globally competitive job markets. Intentionally integrating career development in study abroad empowers students to develop 21st century skills designed for the global marketplace.

Using evidence to improve the quality of student experiences is the focus. Principles of effective use will be presented; users from several institutions will share their experiences on enhancing use; and small groups will share examples of effective use, particularly connecting desired student learning with environmental factors.

Bringing together the architects of key assessment tools used today in study abroad to gauge student learning and development (the GPI, BEVI and IDI), this session asks the simple question: Which tool does what? Panelists discuss the effectiveness of their respective instruments in assessing student learning and development as expressed in Forum Standards and Queries.

This discussion-based session explores the landscape of adjunct instruction in EA and outlines a research agenda of its many ramifications. The reality of adjunct instruction should be assessed by professionals precisely because it’s so prevalent and because it takes place at such a critically important place in study abroad in the classroom.

This panel offers a lively and interactive theme of religion and the study abroad experience. Religion is a potent and vital force in our contemporary world, but is it appropriately represented in study abroad programs? From the complexities of geo-politics and state relations to individual daily devotional practices and communal ceremonies which mark a believer's transition through life, from cradle to grave, religion is present. As proponents of global understanding through study abroad, it is incumbent upon us to foster an understanding of the religious traditions that orient the lives of billions of believers as part of our educational mission. This panel draws on study abroad experience that incorporates active engagement with religious communities and explores strategies to approach religion not as a museum exhibition, but through the reality of the lived experience. How can study abroad programs help students better understand and encounter religious tradition in our world? How do we teach students to approach and understand notions of the sacred? What administrative, pedagogical, and other challenges does such an attempt present? Finally, how do we recruit and prepare students for such an engagement? This panel offers a geographically and religious diverse perspective.

This presentation showcases the importance of early college programs, featuring the University of San Diego (CA) Sophomore Year Experience program and USD’s partnership with CEA, who serves as a host for SYE participants during a three-week winter session program. The session focuses upon the importance of local-global partnerships to achieve international education goals.

This event adopts a ‘town-hall’ format and focuses on identifying and discussing key issues in study abroad instruction, such as the academic expectations of instructors, students and administrators; French versus U.S. approaches to teaching; faculty training; the use of IT; integrated field trips, and other cross-cultural issues that arise when students are faced with non-U.S. instructors and approaches to teaching and learning.

This presentation showcases research about employer trends and examines the relationship to career preparation during study abroad. Findings are used to suggest methods for adapting programs abroad to better prepare students for professional outcomes.

This workshop continues conversation on how innovative mapping exercises are used in diverse experiential settings to accomplish targeted student learning goals in study abroad, such as greater tolerance for diversity and heightened intercultural awareness. Mapping in both paper and digital formats is a creative approach to experiential learning and an excellent device for visualizing, conceptualizing, and understanding complex issues framing urban contexts because, as an analytical tool, it integrates physical space, social relationships and intercultural influences.

While we as international educators have identified the many intrinsic values study abroad alone offers to today'’'s post-millennial students intercultural competence, comparative cultural knowledge, foreign language proficiency, global awareness, greater cultural tolerance, etc. part of our educational mission is to help such students recognize and articulate these values in terms of marketable career skills, job-related knowledge, and professional empowerment and vision. The session addressed the following questions: how should students articulate to potential employers the many practical skills, attitudes, and knowledge they gain through study abroad? What message conveys to students the importance of thinking more critically about their international learning experiences in terms of the marketable skills and cultural adaptability that employers need and look for? What practical strategies get study abroad administrators talking to colleagues in career services about empowering students professionally before, during, and after study abroad?

In this half day workshop, Kevin Murphy, Scott G. Blair and Greg Smith addressed the the teaching of food and wine as cultural expressions of any international setting, beyond the intrinsic merits of cuisine and oenology, and explored how these topics offer a framework ideally suited to addressing global issues of cultural, historical and anthropological importance, as well as food-policy, business and economics. Their discussions tracked how the field can open up new avenues for intercultural competence, cross-cultural understanding and experiential instruction, as students learn through tastings, food preparation, industry visits, work experience and reflection; how it can even develop transferable skills, such as a deeper grasp of the historical foundations of cultural forms; and can have attitudinal impact by affecting personal consumer choice in shaping environmental, social and economic sustainability. The workshop also delivered training in instruction methods through a range of hands-on interactive tastings and pairings performed by the workshop'’'s participants. Participants were intended to develop a better understanding of the value of food and wine studies in the realm of cross-cultural learning; explore the interactive and reflective methods of instruction associated with organised tasting and food\wine pairing; and be introduced to the interactive techniques of evaluating wines through a sensory study of wine color, aroma, viscosity and taste.

This session presented structured methods used by study abroad programmes in Italy to create interactions and collaborations between their student bodies and the local community. Florence and Rome together host over 35 study abroad programmes that share an emphasis on experiential learning. Information was gathered by surveying programme staff and administrators, professors and students, and local participants with whom the programmes collaborate. Experiential learning activities occur both as course-specific events and as programme-wide activities open to all students. Examples from Florence were shown to be adaptable to any study abroad setting in which experiential learning is a priority.

This session describes an experiential learning activity that brings into play the global city of Paris; its history of pre-war anti-Semitism followed by Jewish deportation; and its struggle for social progress and human rights today. Using maps and mapping as learning tools, this activity helps students identify historical meaning present in the city and requires them to reflect upon the significance of such meaning in terms of both their own ethical development and of the ongoing call for implementing human rights. This learning exercise designed for the study abroad setting incites students to think more deeply and more laterally about what the global city can reveal to them about the historical struggle for human rights and social justice. It is student awareness and engagement that this learning activity is designed to build.

This session explores the importance of linking on-campus career services with study abroad programs. Although clearly adding value, cases of effective partnering among key offices on campus with program staff overseas are still rare. Presenters offer both theory and practice on linking career services, academic units, and education abroad offices both on campus and on site.

This workshop focused upon early college study abroad, where participants examined the role of student development theory in education abroad, challenging educators assumptions about students through active discussion.

Kevin Murphy spoke at this special session alongside representatives of Gustolab Institute in Italy, and a professor from Stony Brook University. The session was intended to solicit dialogue on the various strategies of intercultural competence development. Kevin Murphy spoke about the teaching of taste as a gateway to intercultural competence, exploring the methods adopted by CEA instructors at Italy programs to developing students'’' intercultural competence and cross-cultural understanding through experiential and reflective exercises.

This session provides a theoretical approach to using study abroad cities as cartographical laboratories for student intercultural learning. The two case-studies (LGBT communities in Paris and sub-cultural populations in Dublin) propose map-based approaches to recognized best practices in experiential education. Cartographical tools for helping students reflect upon the diversity of foreign urban landscapes are presented along with corresponding onsite-study templates for practical instructional use.

CEA took part in the 2011 AIEA conference in San Francisco, whose theme was “Competition and Collaboration in the Global Transformation of Higher Education.” Dr. John Heyl, CEAs Vice President for Strategic Partnerships, chaired a panel session on U.S. Partners as Change Agents: Institutional Transformation in Prague, London, and Elsewhere. At the session, Dr. William Barnard, Academic Dean and Campus Director for CEA's program in Prague, Czech Republic, and Hrishabh Sandilya, Associate Dean of International Relations at Anglo-American University in Prague, spoke about CEA and AAU's innovative collaboration in Prague, while Paul Watson, Senior Vice President of AIFS, spoke about AIFS's long-standing relation with Richmond University in London.

The session presented views on managing institutional budgets for international education at a small, private liberal arts institution and a large land grant public institution. The latter reflected pressing challenges related to recent sharp budget cuts throughout higher education in California.

The session offered an American and a European perspective on how institutions are designing strategies to encourage global competence among their graduates

The CEA Paris Global Campus hosted the 2011 edition of the Annual Meeting for Resident Directors of French Programs, an event sponsored by APUAF. In the context of the conference theme “L'galité des chances” (Equal Opportunities), CEA Paris Campus Director, Alexandra Mitchell, participated in the panel “La Situation des etudes du genre en France et les resources pour les étudiants LGBT” (The State of Gender Studies and Resources for LGBT Students in France) with a presentation entitled Resources for Accommodating LGBT Students in France.

For APUAF 2011, hosted by the CEA Paris Global Campus, Ms. Mitchell co-led, with James Benn of ACCENT, a Special Topics Workshop on Homestay and Apartment Housing concentrating on topics of new safety and security norms as well as accommodating students with special needs.

Christopher Edwards, Assistant Academic Dean of the CEA Global Campus in Paris, led a group of France-based, study abroad professionals in a reflection on the role of social media in the learning environment. The session was comprised of discussion and debate based on the perceived learning patters of the millennial“ generation. Attendees were encouraged to continue the discussion in true, millennial style: via a Wiki conceived specifically for this reflection group.

This workshop provides a theoretical approach to using the study abroad city as a laboratory for student intercultural learning. A case-study of LGBT communities in Paris provides a map-based approach to active learning directly inspired by NSEE best practices in experiential education. It presents for discussion a corresponding onsite-study template for student/faculty use during out-of-class instruction. The workshop describes a number of cartographical tools for helping students reflect upon and appreciate the diversity of foreign urban landscapes.

Intercultural communication is a key to successful global business. With the rise of global mobility and dialogue, encountering and communicating with people from varied cultures is commonplace. Study Abroad, traditionally seen as a method of developing cultural awareness, can play a key role in providing high levels of intercultural skills through curriculum design and tailored learning activities. CEA has developed a signature course focused on the acquisition and demonstration of intercultural abilities. The course, now adopted at all of CEA’s Global Campus programs, explores the interaction between culture and communication, introducing students to the knowledge and skills necessary to attain international aptitudes. It also creates opportunities to analyze how cultural identity influences communication with others, interaction with host cultures, and imparts to students the know-how to be effective, ethical intercultural communicators. CEA is simultaneously exploring modules to identify the degree to which the goal of developed intercultural competence is met, and to measure the processes by which study abroad can prepare students better for the global workplace. Academic leaders from CEA will present the rationale, methods and forms of assessment developed to measure success, while an expert, independent observer will provide an analysis of CEA’s efforts. The objective is also to share findings with others and to stimulate serious developments in this critical area.

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The session explores the necessary tensions among key partners in delivering and assessing academic quality abroad: the provider (CEA); the onsite Dean (Paris); the School of Record (UNH); and the Regional Accrediting body (NEASC). How do these players navigate the waters of student demand, academic integrity, faculty oversight, and standards of good practice and accreditation between the U.S. and overseas programs?

France-based panelists representing different programs and institutions will address the impact and potential uses of communication and other new technologies in on-site management and integration of students from an academic and cultural standpoint. How has technology changed interactions among on-site staff, students, faculty and partner institutions? Can these tools be used to enhance learning and engagement with the host culture? On-site staff, faculty and student perspectives will be presented.

This presentation featured a diverse group of individuals working with international internships including representatives from study abroad providers, universities, and the private sector. The session detailed the benefits to students and employers and the desired learning outcomes of international internships. Various internship models and their successes and challenges were presented.

Bringing together noted European specialists from several disciplinarian backgrounds in the Social Sciences, this international conference addresses the current global financial crisis and posits that sound international finance is dependent upon more than just economic principle and grand theory: it requires the formulating and implementing of coordinated public policy, a process that reveals the need for real global governance. In the end, rebuilding world finance will have little meaning or prospect if such effort lacks solid ethical principles and is limited to mere technical adjustment.